


Better than the photos

by diefleder_tey



Category: Kanjani8 (Band)
Genre: Blood, Dark fic, Explicit Language, M/M, Not Beta Read, Sexual Situations, Weirdness, potential dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2019-04-05 06:23:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14038110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diefleder_tey/pseuds/diefleder_tey
Summary: You itch, I itch.  You bleed, I bleed.  We become a couple, we become one.  Except for Shibutani Subaru and Nishikido Ryo, separating and finding new partners hardly means severing and moving on.





	Better than the photos

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the Trope Challenge; the assigned trope fic for this piece was "Magical Connection." Like other Trope Challenge fics, it's more a snippet than a fully realized series. It's purposefully not very clear and I apologize for that.

Ryo wasn’t surprised to see him there, waiting up against the brick wall on the corner, shoulder leaned in and his back slightly turned away from the door. The best attempt to look casual. Uninterested. As if he weren’t waiting. Always waiting, now, and completely unconcerned with hiding - wanting to be seen. Ryo paused, with his hand on the door, pressing hard into the clean glass surface, the oil on his skin leaving fingerprint traces behind.

Subaru had a cigarette in his mouth, and he pulled the lighter out of his pocket as he pretended not to hear the footsteps quickly coming up behind him. “Are you going to share?” he heard Ryo say. He rolled his eyes. Once the cigarette was lit, he held out in front of him - away from Ryo - for a moment, letting it burn, before dropping it on the ground and crushing it out with the heel of his shoe.

“Nice,” Ryo muttered.

Subaru gave him a sarcastic smile back. “So, what are we doing tonight?”

“Same thing as usual - nothing. _We’re_ not doing anything. Got it?”

Subaru squinted at the thought. “Right.”

They both turned their heads as the door opened again and another man stepped outside - pale, dark hair, Yoko looked around, almost lost for a second before catching Ryo’s gaze. He put his hands into the pockets of his jacket and tilted his head in the other direction, eyes wide.

Subaru knew what that meant.

Ryo smiled and clapped his hand on Subaru’s shoulder. “Get over it already.” He pointlessly jogged back to the door - a short distance before he had to slow down so as not to run into Yoko.

Subaru knew what that meant too.

Before long, Ryo and Yoko had disappeared from the lot and Subaru was feeling a weird tickle at the back of his throat - a dryness that made him cough to clear his chest. He contemplated pushing his head into the brick and keep pushing until the hardness hurt and red-orange streaks appeared on his skin. The wasted cigarette was still beneath his shoe; he wanted another one, but he wanted his stubbornness to win out even more.

The door opened again and Subaru started to smile. “Hey, Maru,” he called.

“Hm?” the other said, his hands full of papers and a travel mug of coffee tucked into arm.

“What are you doing tonight?” Subaru asked, approaching him.

“Well I was supposed to…,” Maru trailed off. Subaru didn’t have to say much, or anything at all. When he wanted to get his way, he didn’t need much more than his eyes - wide, open, unblinking. Like a cat watching its prey. “I need to get...um, nothing, really.”

“Good.” A Cheshire smile to match. “Come with me.”

***

“You’re sure it’s okay if we just stay in and cook tonight?” Yoko asked.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Ryo answered, kicking his shoes off in front of the door. “It’s cold in here.”

Yoko gave him a curious look as he put the small bag of groceries on his counter. “Really? I was thinking it was kind of warm.”

“Yeah,” Ryo answered, moving toward Yoko’s couch, mentally cursing Subaru. He hadn’t thought about smoking all day until he left work and saw the cigarette precariously perched in Subaru’s mouth. And then the jerk had had the audacity to drop it on the ground. The gnaw of the missed opportunity wouldn’t leave. He wasn’t about to go out and get his own, not then, not there. Yoko said he had quit months ago and Ryo knew the rules - nothing he could do about it now. The next time he saw Subaru, he’d… He flopped down on the couch with a sigh. If nothing else, he knew that at least he wasn’t the only one suffering. “Mind if I turn the heat up or something?”

“Uh,” Yoko answered, grabbing a pot out of the cupboard. “Can I get you a sweater?”

Ryo rolled his eyes. “I’ll get it.”

“Left side.”

He walked into Yoko’s bedroom, pulling open the doors to his closet and pushing aside hangers of white button-up shirts and black slacks until he got to the three to four sweaters Yoko actually owned. He contemplated grabbing two. Even if it got a little too hot then-

“You wanted mushrooms, right?”

Ryo gave up on the idea and just grabbed the black one - the lighter black one - and yelled back, “Yeah. Double.” No need to overdo it.

By the time he walked back to the kitchen, Yoko already had one pot of water boiling and a chopping board full of vegetables. Ryo opened his mouth to speak, but before he made a sound, Yoko pointed to the side where the rice maker was, lid up. Ryo smiled. “What can I-”

Yoko pointed again at the rice maker. Right. Ryo already knew that. But he stubbornly stood there and crossed his arms, clearing his throat slightly.

Yoko, slightly annoyed, turned away from the vegetables only to give him a momentary look. “You’re the one who’s picky about it,” he muttered.

Some people know each other so well that they don’t need to speak, like breathing they know what to do without even thinking about it. They know - each other’s feelings, wants, needs. The second side to the one mirror. Connected nerves. They know. One bullet and they both bleed, as it were. It had its perks. Ryo was by no means a stranger to what that kind of relationship felt like - and it had been convenient before - but he sometimes stubbornly insisted on hearing things out loud too. _Yeah, I know what you want. Don’t be so comfortable. Just say it._ They weren't there yet. They weren't even close. Saying it out loud - it was the very least someone could do.

The least, but not the only. Ryo bit his bottom lip, wrinkled up his nose, as he looked at the back of Yoko's head - the way his hair was messy there, blown around in the wind on their walk and still askew thanks to Yoko's focus on dinner over aesthetics. He had sometimes bleached out the color or tried brunette, but it was currently its natural jet black - the way Ryo liked it best. Not that Ryo had told him. They weren't _there_ yet either.

Ryo walked up behind him, pressed up against his side, and leaned a hand on his shoulder. He rested his mouth against his hand to hide the smile that was starting to curl out at the corners of his lips. He had once been told that he had a habit of smiling like that any time he knew he was being a shit. He wasn't going to fool anyone, no matter how much he tried to bury his mouth into the side of his hand - but that wasn't really the point.

Yoko put down the knife and sighed. "Really?" he said. "The rice, please."

"Was that so hard?"

"Shit."

Ryo made a face. "Hey, I'm just-"

"Shit," Yoko repeated, jumping back, away from him. He was staring at Ryo's left arm and pointing. "Shit, shit shit shit shit shit." He searched the counters around him in a panic, opening drawers and cabinets.

"What gives?" Ryo muttered. He looked at his left arm and saw the small trail of red dripping from his bicep, gathering at the joint of the elbow, slightly pooling at the fingertips before dropping to the floor. "Shit!"

Yoko finally found a dishrag and threw it at him. "What did you even cut it on?!"

"I didn't cut it on anything," Ryo barked back, holding the rag against the muscle. He pressed it against his chest while taking another rag from Yoko, this one wet, and wiping down his forearm. It wasn't as bad as it looked - it wasn't bleeding that much. Just….

Ryo traced the streak with the wet cloth to where it originated, and he made a point to jab himself in the arm right at that spot. As hard as he could. It stung. Good. "It's fine," he continued. "I didn't cut it on anything here."

Yoko hesitated. "You're sure?"

"I'm positive."

"You're sure that it's fine, I mean?"

"Yeah, it's fine," Ryo said, flinging the wet cloth - now more pink than white - into the sink. "It wasn't bad, see? It's not even bleeding anymore."

"Good," Yoko commented. He reached over to the sink, flicking the wad of used cloth to a corner with one hand while grabbing a sponge with the other. He quickly wetted it, squeezed it out, and then threw it at Ryo's face. "Then clean my floor."

Ryo wanted to protest. But it was fair. And the alternative - well the alternative would have been easier in a sense, but it probably wouldn't have spared Ryo any work in the long run. He peeked at his bicep - not a drop. "Got it," he answered, crouching to wipe up the blood splatters that had made it to the floor.

After a few minutes, he quickly realized that Yoko probably hadn't properly cleaned his kitchen floor in a while. The sponge was picking up more than blood and Ryo was certain that wasn't his fault. "You jerk," he whispered to himself.

"Hm?"

Ryo half-grinned. Of course, it wasn't like Yoko had planned the incident, but he was certainly making the most of the opportunity. If Yoko weren't standing there, partially in his way, cooking, Ryo probably would have sought out a bucket to finish the job properly. He hated being conned into work, but he hated leaving things half-done even more. "It's hot in here," he said, running the sponge over the floor in front of the fridge.

"You have a sweater on."

"What?" Ryo said, looking up.

Yoko pointed at him with his knife. "You've got a sweater on."

"Oh, yeah," Ryo said, pulling it off. It wasn't that. It couldn't be that. He wasn't working up a sweat wiping a few spots on a floor casually. Maybe he had gotten too worked up about his arm bleeding - but as he stood up and felt his face flush more, that didn't seem right either. That had been a shock, but he hadn't felt much pain - his heart had sped up slightly from the excitement, but it was the quicker beat of surprise. It left as quickly as it came, and that had been a while ago.

This was a slow burn. Like Ryo couldn't get his blood to settle to make the heat in his cheeks go away. He could feel his heart again, but it wasn't a panic beat - no rapid thumping, but almost like it was suddenly beating harder, beating deeper with each contraction of the valves.

"I can open a window?" Yoko said, looking over his shoulder.

"It's fine."

Yoko paused, watching him, before nodding and turning back to dinner. As far as Ryo was concerned, Yoko could just keep thinking he had merely reacted poorly to the sight of blood.

He took a few steps back, pulling his phone out of his back pocket and making sure Yoko was still focused on the board in front of him to notice. The number wasn't in his contacts anymore, but it wasn't like he didn't know it by heart at this point. His thumb quickly ran over letters as he punched out a message and fired it off: _Quit it._

The flush settled, his heart went back to normal. "Good," he muttered to himself.

The phone dinged at the receipt of a new message: _Make me :)_

"Shit."

Flushed cheeks, hard heart beats - that was nothing. That was the teaser. Ryo felt the creeping, yawning stretching of muscle and salt on his tongue and his heart started to beat in his ears. It wasn't the worst feeling to have, but Ryo liked things on his own terms. Good things at the wrong time, the wrong way - like getting candy when you expect a burger. Annoying. He tightened his grip on the sponge and cleared his throat.

Yoko's hair looked great. It looked exactly like Ryo liked it. It was the right color and the right cut and he could just reach his hand through it and grab on, pull Yoko's head back. They had known of each other for a while, in the same work environment, friendly enough. They were both the types to make small talk, or none at all - and were happy to do so. Ryo made the move. It wasn't long ago, it was only a few weeks back. Yoko didn't ask questions, real questions, and Ryo was glad about that; it was one of the reasons Yoko seemed to like him too, because Ryo didn't ask either. What do you want to do? What do you want to eat? It never went past that. At least not yet.

It was the right level of quiet. Ryo could still make him say things out loud, but didn't have to explain himself in return.

It was definitely warmer in there. He put his hand up to his forehead, rubbing it as he cringed, trying to get the thought out of his head. Yoko - his hair looked great. His shoulders looked great. Ryo loved what he was wearing, the simple choice in clothes, the way they fit on his frame. Yoko had started working out lately too - when they first met he was a little on the chubbier side, but he told Ryo in the past week he had found kickboxing. He liked it. It worked for him.

If the thought had popped up in his head on its own, he would have grabbed Yoko then and there. He would have muttered, "Fuck it," when Yoko would have - no doubt - protested, trying to explain how it'd have to wait until the cooking was done. "Shut up," he would have said and after a moment, Ryo would have made sure that Yoko did just that.

It was like flexing a muscle, but Ryo knew he wasn't doing it. He kept his eyes closed and started to chew on his bottom lip. "Quit it," he quietly muttered to himself. He took his thumb and pressed it into his bicep, right where the cut should have been. He pressed in hard. It hurt. He wanted it to hurt more.

"Are you okay?"

No. Ryo was having trouble breathing. "It's fine," he said.

"Look," Yoko replied. "We can do this some other time. You're not feeling good."

"It's fine." Ryo was speaking through clenched teeth. "I just...need your-" He moved out of the kitchen, heading straight for Yoko's bathroom as the other craned his neck, watching him go, a concerned look on his face.

Stretching, flexing, muscle tensing up. Pushing harder and hard, he felt his hips tighten, his thighs clamp. He kept his hand over his mouth, holding it shut. His heart was beating in his ear, rapid, deep, he couldn't even hear anything else going on in the apartment - Yoko in the kitchen, the sounds of the street outside and below. His chest ached, inside and out - he would have put his hand over his heart if he wasn't trying so hard to keep his mouth shut. Aching, from overload, from wanting to be touched more - an itch he couldn't scratch. It was too hot. _Think of anything else,_ but at that point it was too hard to think. He was on auto-pilot stumbling toward the bathroom.

Ryo crashed into the door, quickly shutting it behind him as he started undoing his belt buckle as fast as he could, shoving his pants down, grabbing onto his underwear. Fight it? Yeah fight it. But why. Don't fight it. Fucking asshole. Like a cigarette under a boot. Ryo's mind lightly brushed back to his earlier thought - it wasn't the worst thing in the world. Just annoying. He had just wanted something different. This was comfortable. This was familiar.

He pressed his back up against the bathroom door, fast enough that he slightly hit the back of his tilted head. It was that tightness in his lower abdomen, the muscle contracting and holding, the crescendo rolling over his legs. He hated that gnawing feeling, wanting something and not being able to have it. That was the game, right? Cigarette 2.0.

He was surprised, so much so that he couldn't help but let out a small yelp as his eyes rolled back. That bright white light, the lightning from tip to tongue and hitch in his breath, the snurl in his lip before his limbs stiffened and he couldn't control anything - a pulsating relief washing over his body before he went jelly-legged and breathless.

Ryo took a few deep breaths before pounding his fist back up against the door. It wasn't the worst feeling in the world, not by a long shot.

As his breath evened out and his heart sunk back down to its usual meter, as his face started to cool and his legs felt like they could hold weight again, he sighed and purposely hit his head against the wood. He grimaced - maybe he should just offer to clean Yoko's entire place before the night was through.

A beeping sounded out from his pants and Ryo reached down to fish his phone out of the pocket.

_:D fuck you_

He glared at it and started to write something back, interrupted when the next message automatically came through: _It'll never be better and you know it._

Wasn't the worst thing in the world? No, fuck that. That was exactly what it was.

By the time Ryo made it back to the kitchen, Yoko had finished everything and had dinner on simmer. He was leaned up against his counter, his arms crossed. "I'm taking you home," he announced.

Ryo waved him off. "It's fine." He scrambled to block Yoko from leaving the kitchen, panicky that the other didn't seem to agree. "Dinner's ready, right? Let's just eat, then I'll head home, okay?"

Yoko tilted his head at the thought, mulling it over. Sometimes Ryo acted weird when they were together. Like a dog, almost - when something struck him he'd react to it immediately, sometimes loudly. They might be watching a movie together when Ryo announced he was itchy, annoyed at the very thought. Or if he was thirsty, he never hesitated to act on it. Ow. It's hot. What the fuck is that smell? Outbursts of agony or frustration. It didn't seem like a big deal; it seemed like just part of Ryo's personality, once you got to know him. Maybe.

Ryo could see his thoughts as they passed through - it wasn't okay, it was okay, no this guy really was too weird, maybe weird wasn't bad, I'm taking him home...but I'm hungry, it's okay to eat and worry about it later. _Yeah, okay, let's eat._ Ryo smiled and laughed slightly as Yoko nodded and handed him a bowl.

"Yoko?"

"Yeah?"

Ryo found himself cringing at suddenly speaking. "Before that, would you do me a favor?"

"Okay?"

"I have a...slight problem." _Not like that. Not like that._ He saw Yoko's expression change. No. It wasn't going past that, he swore. This was still what do you want to do, what do you want to eat.

He sighed. But it was past that, wasn't it? The next day he'd either be glaring at Subaru, with his smug cat-smile claiming victory, or he'd find himself in strange new territory - a place where he'd have to explain things, the first couple of steps down a path that could eventually lead him to being so comfortable with Yoko he wouldn't even need to speak. If Yoko was up for it. He'd find out for sure now.

Ryo grabbed the bowl away from him, setting both down on the counter. He took a deep breath and then Yoko's hands in his own, gently guiding them up to his neck.

***

Maru wasn't sure.

He kind of felt like he got talked into everything, but, then again, that's how most of the exciting things happened in his life. He guessed he liked Shibutani okay. He guessed that the night had been alright. He was pretty sure he had enjoyed some of it.

Right?

Maru looked around his apartment, his hand on his neck. He shifted his weight from foot to foot and sucked in his lips. Was it alright? Was that how these things usually went?

"It's hot, open all the windows."

And he had.

"Do you know what I like? Hand me the knife."

And he had.

"Come here, give me your hands. Now, just-"

And he had.

Subaru was on the couch, his arm wrapped up in bandages that Maru had scrambled to find. He had a leg up on the arm, his clothes littered about. He was smiling. He threw his phone over to another cushion and looked up at Maru. "I almost feel like smoking."

"Oh," Maru interjected. He was in the corner of the room, like the mouse afraid to dash out across the open kitchen floor. "I don't like-"

"It's okay," Subaru answered. "I wouldn't, anyway. I should probably get going."

"Okay."

Subaru started coughing as he stood up and started collecting his clothes. A light tickle. Then a little harder. Then it was hard to catch his breath.

"Hey," Maru said, his mouth open, panic increasing. "Your face is turning really red."

Subaru's catlike eyes widened. He choked to get air. His face was dark, turning darker still as he started clawing at his neck to remove something that wasn't there. Fuck you, Nishikido. Fuck you.

It finally happened. They couldn't do anything about the situation, but look into the mirror and accept that one side would always be connected to the other. Dance and make the other side dance too. One bullet and two hearts bleed. Baru's eyes were starting to get cloudy as he gasped for air, anger mixed in the desperation. _Fuck you, Nishikido. Fuck you. Don't you know? You don't get to reach in from the other side too._  



End file.
